


Look How They Shine For You

by Draco_sollicitus



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Damerey Daily, F/M, Ficlet, Grief, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Post TROS, Recovery, Romantic Gestures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:40:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22341949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draco_sollicitus/pseuds/Draco_sollicitus
Summary: Poe Dameron doesn't know the full story of what happened to Rey on Exegol, but he knows the edges of it, enough to understand why she came back so quiet.He doesn't know how, not right away, but he'll do anything to see her smile one more time. To hear her voice. To know that she's going to be okay.(and the constellations shine down for us to see)
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Rey
Comments: 16
Kudos: 142
Collections: Damerey Daily 2020





	Look How They Shine For You

**Author's Note:**

> For the Damerey Daily prompt: _and the constellations shine down for us to see_
> 
> (I think all of my post-TROS fics are going to be consumed by my firm belief that Rey was fully traumatized by everything that happened in all three movies, especially...you know ... dying in that last one)

* * *

She comes back quiet.

Sometimes, Poe thinks she didn’t come back at all. 

Finn’s best with her in those weeks after Exegol: patient, soft, warm, but Finn has to leave - stormtroopers to save, parents to find - and then it’s just Poe trying to coax a girl (who didn’t have words to spare Before) to talk to him.

He brings her koyo. Rolls them at her as she sits cross-legged, poking at a ship with half-as-much-curiosity as Before.

He sings to her. Loudly. Off-key. Anything to get her nose to twitch like she’s hiding a laugh. 

He brings her droids. Buckets of ‘em. Round and long and short and small and all needing love that he knows she has tucked away in her heart.

Poe does everything he can think of - dance, paint, tease, poke, and dance again - but Rey doesn’t talk. 

After weeks of trying, he slips into her quarters to leave flowers on her pillow (Beebee picks the lock with an ease that should bother him) and sees them carved into the durasteel above her bed.

Stars.

Constellations of them. 

He traces the ones that trail onto the sloping walls, and as his fingers notch into one, Poe remembers how her eyes used to light up with anything new; he remembers her stories (the ones that made him feel punched-in-the-gut but bad, not the punched-in-the-gut he usually felt around her) about never leaving the desert. About wishing to see everything there was to see. About how she wanted to find every star. Name them, so they wouldn’t feel lonely (and he thinks that’s When, that’s When He Knew).

Poe takes her planet-hopping in a two-seater X-Wing and swings her around their current solar system, parking her on a moon he’d visited back in his NRDF days.

He holds her hand as they pick over rocks and crags, holding a torch in his other hand; she doesn’t question when he leads her through a cavern, and deep in his gut Poe thinks he didn’t do a thing to deserve this kind of trust. As the darkness closes in around them, her breathing picks up in that way that he knows all too well from waking up from dreams that always leave him sweating and scared. 

Poe squeezes her hand. Rey squeezes back.

And here they are; the place Muran brought him (don’t think about Muran, not here, not now when you need to lead someone else out of their darkness), and Poe whispers, “three...two...one…” and clicks off his torch.

With the new darkness, the fish in the water below their feet stir to life, glowing soft-blue-gentle, and it reflects on the ceiling. Poe nudges Rey and tilts his chin back, and he watches her face as she takes in the view.

Her eyes widen and her hand tightens on his and her head tilts way-way-way-way-way back to take it all in:

Poe looks up too and sees the way the light catches on the crystal formations of the ceiling of the cave, not bright enough to dazzle but bright enough to warm, and he hopes she’s smiling as he says, “Thought I’d give you some new stars to look at.”

She’s quiet, but that’s okay.

“Beautiful, right?” He asks, his voice hushed to match the cave -

“Right,” Rey whispers back, her voice hoarse from disuse. “Beautiful.” 

Those two words fill him to the brim in ways he never could have imagined, and Poe’s smiling enough to make his cheeks ache -

He’s so busy smiling at the stars, he doesn’t notice that Rey wasn’t looking up when she spoke.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading <3


End file.
